The real cost of socialized medicine

Take a look at the chart presented (H/T Gary Gross) by SCSU Scholars of the average wait times for a number of conditions. Notice that each procedure notes something pretty debilitating--you're not going to work if you need hip or knee replacement surgery, for example--at least not very comfortably.

It would suggest that there is an additional cost of socialized medicine; lost productivity and life due to the wait for necessary surgeries. I would, for example, might still be waiting to get my gallbladder out--or, as King notes, his and my gallstones might have disabled or killed us. My mother might never have lived to get a colonoscopy--in 2005--let alone the surgery and chemotherapy that extended her life until this year.

In other words, the death panels of Canadian health insurance would have had, most likely, some very negative effects on my family, both in terms of the health and lives of those we love, and also in terms of lost income from likely debilitation and/or premature death. When one adds these costs in, I dare suggest that our health care system isn't so expensive after all.